Consider this another entry in my erratic, informal, exploration of lesser known aspects and events within the history of Christianity.
Did you know early Protestant leaders defended bigamy on theological grounds? To put it that way makes it sound worse than it is–and yet not. The attempt to justify bigamy was not a concerted act of the Reformed Protestant movement as a whole–any insinuation as such would be dishonest. Nonetheless three very prominent Protestant leaders were involved in this scandal, and that is reason enough for those who claim any degree of Protestant heritage to stop and pondering the roots of this failure.
Martin Bucer (early German Butzer) was a leader during the early Protestant Reformation. He began his religious life as a member of the Dominican Order, later having his vows annulled and joining the work of the Reformation. He had extensive contact with Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and, at the end of his life, with Thomas Cranmer influenced the second revision of The Book of Common Prayer in England.
The Reformation is a fascinating time in history, particularly in regard to religious matters. It was a time of upheaval, strife, and oppression. This confluence of events has the effect of shining a bright light on the nature of men in all of their contradiction, weakness, and insight. Under the pressure of trying times people reveal more about themselves than we might like, and in looking over the historical record of such things a person can find much to ponder about men and their ways.
I agree with certain things said by various leaders in the Reformation, but I am always extremely disconcerted by a common habit in some circles of enthusiastically embracing a Reformation figure, be it Calvin, Luther, or someone else. The great names in the Reformation were deeply flawed men–and in that broken state no different from any other man or woman. A careful reading of history shows them as people who were inconsistent in what they said and did, even flatly contradictory. They were often wrong, or only partly right. They often did not follow right knowledge with right action. Those who today enthusiastically cling to some leader of the Reformation as a model for emulation open themselves to the charge of being either ignorant of what those people said and did and so living in a fantasy, or deliberately blind and so living in a delusion.
I don’t claim to be any better than those men of the Reformation. But I don’t think my faults should be hidden or denied and neither should the faults of those claimed as leaders. The desire to hide the Bigamy scandal is wrong. The weakness brought to light by the Bigamy scandal was more than an isolated and regrettable incident. It was a sign of a deeper problem, and those who brush it all aside remain willfully unreflective. Error ought to be exposed, and named for what it is.
The Reformation period was complex, with many different historical events interweaving to create the full picture. Anything so short as a Wikipedia article will be overly simplistic, leaving much out (and one could even argue presenting a biased account). But for a single event illustrating the flaws of Martin Bucer and the Reformation men of his age consider the following:
In November 1539, Philip asked Bucer to produce a theological defence of bigamy, since he had decided to contract a bigamous marriage. Bucer reluctantly agreed, on condition the marriage be kept secret. Bucer consulted Luther and Melanchthon, and the three reformers presented Philip with a statement of advice (Wittenberger Ratschlag); later, Bucer produced his own arguments for and against bigamy. Although the document specified that bigamy could be sanctioned only under rare conditions, Philip took it as approval for his marriage to a lady-in-waiting of his sister. When rumours of the marriage spread, Luther told Philip to deny it, while Bucer advised him to hide his second wife and conceal the truth. Some scholars have noted a possible motivation for this notorious advice: the theologians believed they had advised Philip as a pastor would his parishioner, and that a lie was justified to guard the privacy of their confessional counsel. The scandal that followed the marriage caused Philip to lose political influence, and the Reformation within the Empire was severely compromised.
Appalling is not too harsh a word to describe this. These men are supposed to be pillars of truth and moral integrity, and they conducted themselves like weasely political lackeys. People today who attempt to cover over these failings, or excuse them, in a desire to venerate their chosen heroes do not do the truth any favors.
The lives of the Reformers were messy, and at times even ugly. I do not consider this cause to discard all they have said, but it is reason to be very careful about heaping praise or following carelessly in their footsteps.
What caused Luther and Bucer to err in such an obvious way? It was a weakness not unique to them: They wanted to please men and they got loose with the truth to reach that end. The more one understands church history the more one sees this terrible flaw. It is a universal siren’s call–deadly, and pervasive. When a fear of men, or desire to please them, is ruling within a church this attitude does far more damage than any persecution from without.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bucer
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